


air/force

by ideal_girl (trainwreckdress)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-29
Updated: 2005-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-14 14:46:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trainwreckdress/pseuds/ideal_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John learned at a very early age that being smart was kind of a pain in the ass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	air/force

John learned at a very early age that being smart was kind of a pain in the ass. You always had to sit at the front of the room, got called on when the teacher didn't get any hands up, were roped into after-school tutoring for that kid that had moved here from there. So when his family moved (again) to Nebraska (in the middle of his junior year), he decided to pull a slow one and just aim for mediocre.

'Course, that plan goes in the toilet the moment the Air Force recruiter signed him up for flight simulation.

*

The plastic smelled stale, a bit like old car and new car combined, but he wasn't paying attention to the smell the second his vision went dark and the screens went bright and his gut went _"oh, hell yeah."_

A blur of blue and green, scribbles of white, up up and away. He'd never been on a plane before this, just cars on flat roads, and he laughed, because this wasn't a plane now neither, was it?

He spilled out of the pod with a thousand words on his tongue and stars in his eyes and asked where he signs.

*

Keeping it from his dad was harder than he thought. There wasn't a man, woman, or small dog alive in the service that didn't know (or know of) Colonel Jack Sheppard, Cold War hero.

The silence lasted until the summer before John's senior year, the bridge between being a kid and being an adult, hair on his arms but not on his chest, razor for his chin actually coming into some use.

His dad nodded, a clipped "I knew you had it in you," shook his hand, and reminded John to take out the garbage.

It _was_ Wednesday, after all.

*

His dad left him a copy of the Red Lines rules and regulations, opened to the part about "the importance of a proper appearance."

John looked around his room, saw shirts spilling out of his dresser drawers and socks crumpled at the foot of his bed. He dropped to his knees and flipped up the bedskirt, rescued the socks from certain dust-bunny death, found a _Playboy_ for his troubles.

"I could get used to this cleaning thing," he thought to himself, banished the socks to the middle of the room and spent some quality time with Brandi, 21, Minneapolis, MN.

*

John figured basic would be kind of a laugh. He'd been m'am'ing and sir'ing since he before he was born, but wouldn't you know it, his TI got wind of his last name and patronage and decided to make an example out of him. Often.

House Mouse, Latrine Queen, Chow Runner, Road Guard, you name it, he did it, and he kept his mouth shut. He could take a little verbal abuse in exchange for flying lessons and a front row seat in the finest in aeronautical engineering, bought and paid.

Of course, that wasn't always so easy to remember.

*

He met Lily at a bar right off base, still kitted out in his dress blues, half-way to being drunker than he'd ever been. She was gorgeous, smiling, and smelled like the air up there, and her hair swung around her shoulders like gravity didn't touch her, and he thought _"is this love?"_

She told him she was an economist, worked for some think-tank on the Hill back East, and he believed her. Believed her until she nearly broke some guy's arm for brushing up against her a little too forcefully at a dive on the other side of town.

*

The 'chopper fell out of the air, and he leaned into it, teeth bared against the wind, eyes full of desert when they should be full of sky.

They touched (crashed) down, sparks the only thing flying from the body of what had once been a top-notch flying machine.

There was shouting and he was yanked out of the wreck. His wing commander looked at him like he was the lowest of the low, screamed out something that sounded like, _"You think you're smart, Sheppard?!"_ but he couldn't be sure, because Lily was turning away, and he couldn't stop her.

*

He couldn't stop a lot of things, and by the time he ends up at McMurdo, freezing his ass off, he's quit trying. He takes to counting his heartbeats every time the runners hit the pad, holding his breath until the rotors quieted, stopped, gravity winning yet again.

Here, the sky was blue and the ground was white. His plan was to have no plan, and so far, it was working for him.

'Course, that plan goes to absolute, total shit the second he meets O'Neill.

And then his eyes are full of (unfamiliar) stars and there's no turning back.

**Author's Note:**

> The [internets](http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/airforcejoin/a/afbmt3_2.htm) told me weird stuff about the Air Force. The [SGA Magazine](http://www.livejournal.com/users/thaliae/86438.html) told me about John's past. [](http://lierdumoa.livejournal.com/profile)[**lierdumoa**](http://lierdumoa.livejournal.com/) held my hand, and [](http://wyoluvr.livejournal.com/profile)[**wyoluvr**](http://wyoluvr.livejournal.com/) cackled maniacally.


End file.
